A frustrated high school instructor has blasted the dismal state of learning in America in a resignation letter that has gone viral and is drumming up a following of educators who support his calls for reforming a broken public education system.

Gerald 'Jerry' Conti has worked for 27 years at Westhill High School in Syracuse, N.Y. but became so disillusioned with the state of education by the school district's reliance on standardized testing and a meddling administration, that he decided to air his grievances in a resignation letter this March that has since taken the web by storm.

Mr Conti criticizes the school for promoting a system that produces a 'zombie-like adherence to the shallow' instead of equipping students with a rich appreciation for learning.

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Reform: Gerald Conti blasted the dismal state of learning in America in a resignation letter that has gone viral

School: The instructor has taught at Westhill High School, in Syracuse, NY, for 27 years

Conti has taught history for the past 40 years, on the college level and at the secondary school in upstate New York.

In his letter, he mentions the fond memories of the school, where both his brother taught and his daughter, Olivia, attended.

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The history instructor presents a Dead Poets Society-like belief in a rich education.

'To me, history has been so very much
more than a mere job, it has truly been my life, always driving my
travel, guiding all of my reading and even dictating my television and
movie viewing.'

'Rarely have I engaged in any of these activities without
an eye to my classroom and what I might employ in a lesson, a lecture or
a presentation,' he writes.

Learning: Conti, with some of his students at Westhill High School, says education should be about getting kids to be curious

Defiant: High school history teacher, Gerald 'Jerry' Conti, told of the dismal state of education in America in his resignation letter

But he says recent, mandated changes in evaluation have forced teachers away from actually teaching students and instead has turned classrooms into factories that produce students to take tests.

Conti is seeking an early retirement, three years before he had planned, because he says the administration has made it impossible to adequately do his job.

'In their pursuit of Federal tax dollars,
our legislators have failed us by selling children out to private
industries such as Pearson Education,' he said of publishing house that produces the assessment tests for the school district.

'It is with sad reluctance that I say our own
administration has been both uncommunicative and unresponsive to the
concerns and needs of our staff and students by establishing testing and
evaluation systems that are Byzantine at best and at worst, draconian,' he added.

Despite the challenges of the system, he still pledges his undying love for the learning process and said he still hopes the district would consider him for a substitute teaching post.

Conti posted the letter to his Facebook page and it was shared by over 1,600 people and several of his colleagues and students came to his support.

The end of an era: Conti, (back) with wax figures of Abraham Lincoln's family, says he can no longer provide a rich learning experience to his students

Support: Mr Conti's current and former students, pictured: his class on a field trip to Independence Hall in Philadelphia, have come out in support of their beloved teacher

'Mr. Conti I feel so fortunate to have had you as a teacher however, I am sad that so many students will not have the experience to learn from you,' one former student Lizzie Rast wrote to the retiring instructor.

'Bravo on bringing such an important message to viral proportions, Mr. Conti!' another former pupil, Jennifer Easton, wrote.

'I think it only makes sense that you leave Westhill with a bang, waving the 'magic bone' one last time and giving us all the opportunity to read these words and continue to learn from you.'

Though the teacher has drummed up support among other educators who are frustrated with the state of education today, he says he didn't intend to start a revolution.

'Education to me is completely qualitative, it’s not quantitative. It’s about personal relationships, and it’s about getting kids to be curious. And that’s what I’ve been trying to do all my career,' he said.

In response to the fame the letter has provided, Mr Conti says that wasn't the intention behind publicizing it.

Reluctant: The high school teacher is appalled by the fame the letter has brought him

'I don’t want notoriety. I want to hide now. I want to be a hermit now. I didn’t expect this to happen.'

The departing teacher said he is unsure of if his career post-teaching will involve education reform.

For now he says he will focus his energy writing a book about the Modoc Indian War in 19th century California.

The school superintendent has come out
in support of Conti, calling him a 'right, articulate educator' and says
he actually agrees with many of the points the teacher made in the
letter about state and federal mandates in education.

'I think the jury is still out on whether they're going to improve
education,' Casey Barduhn, Westhill superintendent, told the paper.

His letter has been circulating just as New York State United Teachers, New York’s biggest teachers union, begins to debate the increase of high-stakes tests.

New York Education Commissioner John King said he thinks teacher's unions are failing to consider the importance of standardized testing.

He claims that the number of state exams has actually not increased considerably in the past few years and said that teachers shouldn't be teaching students just to take tests.

'I think they’re responding to the anxiety in a way that is ultimately unhelpful to their students,' King told the Syracuse paper.

'I think what they should be focused on, as we all should, is how do we support good instruction.'

Conti's frustration with the American education system was the similarly presented in the 2010 documentary, Waiting for Superman.

Director Davis Guggenheim interviewed students and teachers from across the country to evaluate why one of the wealthiest countries in the world was lagging behind when it came to providing a good public education to students.

One of the film's subjects was Michelle Rhee, a former teacher who served as the chancellor of the Washington, D.C. public schools from 2007 to 2010. Rhee has earned a reputation as an education activist who tried to revolutionize the learning system in the nation's capital by taking on the teacher's union and punishing schools and teachers who failed to adequately meet standards.

The film criticizes teacher's unions for protecting their own benefits and interests and questions if under performing teachers are disciplined for bad behavior.

It is with the deepest regret that I must retire at the close of this school year, ending my more than twenty-seven years of service at Westhill on June 30, under the provisions of the 2012-15 contract. I assume that I will be eligible for any local or state incentives that may be offered prior to my date of actual retirement and I trust that I may return to the high school at some point as a substitute teacher.

As with Lincoln and Springfield, I have grown from a young to an old man here; my brother died while we were both employed here; my daughter was educated here, and I have been touched by and hope that I have touched hundreds of lives in my time here. I know that I have been fortunate to work with a small core of some of the finest students and educators on the planet.

I came to teaching forty years ago this month and have been lucky enough to work at a small liberal arts college, a major university and this superior secondary school. To me, history has been so very much more than a mere job, it has truly been my life, always driving my travel, guiding all of my reading and even dictating my television and movie viewing. Rarely have I engaged in any of these activities without an eye to my classroom and what I might employ in a lesson, a lecture or a presentation. With regard to my profession, I have truly attempted to live John Dewey’s famous quotation (now likely cliché with me, I’ve used it so very often) that 'Education is not preparation for life, education is life itself.' This type of total immersion is what I have always referred to as teaching 'heavy,' working hard, spending time, researching, attending to details and never feeling satisfied that I knew enough on any topic. I now find that this approach to my profession is not only devalued, but denigrated and perhaps, in some quarters despised. STEM rules the day and 'data driven' education seeks only conformity, standardization, testing and a zombie-like adherence to the shallow and generic Common Core, along with a lockstep of oversimplified so-called Essential Learnings. Creativity, academic freedom, teacher autonomy, experimentation and innovation are being stifled in a misguided effort to fix what is not broken in our system of public education and particularly not at Westhill.

A long train of failures has brought us to this unfortunate pass. In their pursuit of Federal tax dollars, our legislators have failed us by selling children out to private industries such as Pearson Education. The New York State United Teachers union has let down its membership by failing to mount a much more effective and vigorous campaign against this same costly and dangerous debacle. Finally, it is with sad reluctance that I say our own administration has been both uncommunicative and unresponsive to the concerns and needs of our staff and students by establishing testing and evaluation systems that are Byzantine at best and at worst, draconian. This situation has been exacerbated by other actions of the administration, in either refusing to call open forum meetings to discuss these pressing issues, or by so constraining the time limits of such meetings that little more than a conveying of information could take place. This lack of leadership at every level has only served to produce confusion, a loss of confidence and a dramatic and rapid decaying of morale. The repercussions of these ill-conceived policies will be telling and shall resound to the detriment of education for years to come. The analogy that this process is like building the airplane while we are flying would strike terror in the heart of anyone should it be applied to an actual airplane flight, a medical procedure, or even a home repair. Why should it be acceptable in our careers and in the education of our children?

My profession is being demeaned by a pervasive atmosphere of distrust, dictating that teachers cannot be permitted to develop and administer their own quizzes and tests (now titled as generic 'assessments') or grade their own students’ examinations. The development of plans, choice of lessons and the materials to be employed are increasingly expected to be common to all teachers in a given subject. This approach not only strangles creativity, it smothers the development of critical thinking in our students and assumes a one-size-fits-all mentality more appropriate to the assembly line than to the classroom. Teacher planning time has also now been so greatly eroded by a constant need to 'prove up' our worth to the tyranny of APPR (through the submission of plans, materials and “artifacts” from our teaching) that there is little time for us to carefully critique student work, engage in informal intellectual discussions with our students and colleagues, or conduct research and seek personal improvement through independent study. We have become increasingly evaluation and not knowledge driven. Process has become our most important product, to twist a phrase from corporate America, which seems doubly appropriate to this case.

After writing all of this I realize that I am not leaving my profession, in truth, it has left me. It no longer exists. I feel as though I have played some game halfway through its fourth quarter, a timeout has been called, my teammates’ hands have all been tied, the goal posts moved, all previously scored points and honors expunged and all of the rules altered.

For the last decade or so, I have had two signs hanging above the blackboard at the front of my classroom, they read, 'Words Matter' and “Ideas Matter”. While I still believe these simple statements to be true, I don’t feel that those currently driving public education have any inkling of what they mean.